We moved back into first thanks to Wicked Sid Lester, who was perfect through six point one. Too bad he couldn't get a shutout, but he did get a complete game. Papi with the shortest dong you can hit--but he has been swinging fine lately. He's fine. Fine.

Still waiting ever so patiently for a second team to complete the 0-13 cycle in our contest, so one of you can claim second prize. Eight teams are one total away. The Red Sox finally scored one run in a game on Friday, so the only number below seven not scored by a team is 0, by the Yanks. The Pirates, Cubs, Mariners, White Sox, Red Sox, and Tigers are the only other teams with a single-digit total not yet reached. All the other teams have scored every total between 0 and 9.

Today's event didn't draw too many people, which will happen on a beautiful day, but we did get to sign all of the Bookworm's copies of the book, and we're hoping they'll be able to sell them for Father's Day. If you're looking for an unpersonalized, signed copy, go to the Bookworm in West Hartford.

Mo comes into a 5-5 game, and bed-craps. Yanks lose 9-7 to Tampa.

Sox at 7:10.

My mom and I will be doing a signing (no reading this time) at Bookworm Bookstore in Hartford, CT, at noon on Saturday. Come by and pick up Dirty Water: A Red Sox Mystery, and we will personalize it to the dad of your choice. (Or whoever.) Father's Day is around the corner.

Bookworm
968 Farmington Ave # 1
West Hartford, CT 06107

Lugo just Lugo'd, and the next guy homered, so we currently trail 4-0. I may add an update or two down here....

[Update, 8:47: The Thursday Yanks game is up online. Tickets together and everything. So now we'll see when they put the Braves series up....]

[Update, 10:30: We totally lose, 5-1. Trade Lugo tomorrow. Or later tonight if you're up.]

[6:46: Not raining at Fenway, looks like they'll play. Yanks-Devil Rays rained out.]

[Update, 4:48: The release from the team looks like the one they always use.]

[Update: I figured this out. Instead of a play button like they used to have, there are past, present and future buttons. You have to press "past" to see the full radar. I was looking at the "future." I still say it's confusing.]

I like going to weather.com and looking at the "in motion" radar map. You can zoom in, move the map around, etc. However, they just changed the format and it looks like they've made a terrible mistake. I noticed on the map that Cape Cod looked like it was dipped in green slime. In other words, there appeared to be an area of rain covering the Cape in the exact shape of the land. Then it hit me: They're now only showing precipitation over land. Terrible!

You know what this means? If a storm is coming in off the ocean, it doesn't appear! Until it hits land, that is. What kind of "forecast" is that? Granted, we're on the east coast, and most weather comes in from the west, but storms often come from the south and east, going over water before hitting New England. The west coast has it even worse. There could be a giant typhoon one mile off the California coast right now, but looking at their map, you wouldn't know about it.

Anyway, right now we've got rain covering our area, but I can't tell where the south/east end of it is....but it looks like a 60% chance of rain all night in Boston. No statement from the team as of 4:00...

Funny article about John Sterling here.

So the Unit got his 300th, and the mlb.com article about it questioned if he'd be the last 300-game winner. I say no. I think the pendulum will eventually swing back the other way, and we'll see four-man rotations again, and pitchers throwing a lot of pitches again. 511 may stand forever, but give it a few more generations, and you'll see 300s and 400s.

Sad story about a guy who grew up with a monkey sister.

Did you hear what LeBron James said about not shaking his opponents' hands after his team was knocked out of the playoffs? "It's hard for me to congratulate somebody after you just lose to them. I'm a winner. It's not being a poor sport or anything like that."

What kind of person calls himself a "winner" after losing? That's easy. A Yankee fan. Still the only team in sports that plays their victory song even after a loss.

Red Sox back home vs. Texas tonight, if the rain holds off.

My pal G-Wobble of Total Dick (check out "Time Machine" before you do anything else! Including reading this post!) chimes in with his review of Yankee Stadium aka New Loo, aka Eau de Toilette, aka the Current Stadium, aka The Souvenir Store, from his recent trip there for a game with the Orioles:

Ridiculousness:
Every time a Y[ankee] pitcher gets two strikes on the hitter, you know because every LED board in the place reminds you of the fact via two animated Mickey Mouse gloves clapping, and the words "TWO STRIKES!" Every time.

Every Y[ankee] home run is brought to you by Geico, and they make sure that you sure as fuck are aware of that. Every LED screen, including the ribbon that runs around the upper deck, fills with about 5,000 Geico logos and that animated lizard for every home run. Really distracting.

Seriousness:
The right field fence is noticeably lower and closer than in the old shithole, and it's no illusion. And the wind tunnel rumors are 100% true. We sat in section 212, middle level halfway up the right field line, and there was barely a breeze. We then walked around to the area behind the bleachers, and had a 15 mph steady wind blowing in our faces. The Cano home run early in the game was a fucking joke. Unbelievable.

I will say that the out of town scoreboard with the detailed info like runners on base, outs, etc. was sweet, as I could see that you were attending a much better game than I. I couldn't even bring myself to root for the O's, it was more like maintaining the faintest flicker of hope that they would become competent. Nope.

All in all, not a bad place, weird that the Ys play there now. It seemed quieter, too, event though they were winning the whole game.

Tix dumped online for games one and two of the Yanks series next week. Lotta singles, and side-by-side obstructed views.

3:58: SOX WIN! Pap gets pop up, and force out, and that's it. 6-3. Turned out to be a nice trip, ending with a sweep.

3:53: Papelbon in for the ninth. Walk, force-out on a hard hit ball, and a base hit. So the tying run's up with one out. Yanks up 8-6 in the ninth. Toronto lost.

3:29: Sox still up 6-3, going to the 9th. Yanks 6-6, bot 7.

2:55: 5-run fifth gives Yanks a 6-5 lead. Sox still up 6-3, mid-7th.

2:20: NESN finally comes back after not showing me the first hour of the game. We still lead 6-3 in the fifth, Yanks down 5-1 in the fifth. Toronto down 5-1 in the sixth.

1:56: Sox score six in 3rd. 6-3 us. Much like in that exhibition game I went to in April, the Red Sox have 6 runs on 2 hits. Yanks trail 2-1.

1:47: Dontrelle pulled with a no-hitter going in the third! (Because he's walked FIVE. We now trail 3-2, still batting in third.)

1:29: NESN stinks! No picture, no audio. No game. I've got it on radio, and Wake just gave up three in the second. 3-0 Detroit. The Yanks could've had a big inning in the first, but Teixeira was doubled off first (or something, Gameday is unclear), so they only get one and lead 1-0 in the second.

The Pee Train vs. Wake, 1:05. I will provide updates.

Check out this interview my mom and I did on Laura Reviews. Thanks to savethejellyfish for pointing me to her blog, as he, Laura, and I all grew up in Ridgefield.

Also, here's a little video I shot of Willie Mays Hayes on Saturday (sound not necessary) :

David Carradine seems to have committed suicide at age 72. "Kung Fu" was before my time, but I thought the guy did a great job in Kill Bill. I can just see him casually licking his fingers while making a sandwich as he told the tale of the dead goldfish. And I really liked the story about superheroes' identities in that same scene.

I don't know anything about his personal life, but I can't understand doing this at 72. Maybe he was sick and didn't want a long, drawn-out death?

Added to post: Here's a pic I took on the FDR Drive on Sunday. As you know one of my loyal readers is "AJM," and when I saw this plate featuring his name and the date coming up five days later, I had to get the shot. So, now it's 6/4/09--this one's for you AJM!

Very weird ending to a game that was 10-0 in the eighth. Josh loses his no-hitter with two outs in the seventh. Then we tack on a bunch of runs in a long eighth, making it 10-0. But Josh comes back out for some reason. Pretty soon, Bard's in, we're making errors left and right, Youk is going nuts because...a runner stepped near him? And before you knew it it was 10-5, and now Lowell's ejected and the ump has completely stopped giving a strike call to any Sox pitcher.

But we hold on, and at the exact same time, Texas gets the last out against the Yanks, in a game where the Rangers were giving the Yanks all kinds of chances, but they could never capitalize. 4-2 final. (And A-Rod booed. Some "spark" the Yanks have going for them, eh?) So we move back into a first place tie with NY, and the Jays lose, so they're 2 back.

Red Sox-Tigers, 7.

In Gedman-spawn news, Marissa's team went undefeated and won the league title. She had at least two hits in the final game and threw out a runner to end the game.

Mike and Matt recently combined for five hits in a game.

When are people gonna learn that all these things that "spark" a team are meaningless? The Yanks have had so many different sparks or fires lit under them or whatever you wanna call it for the last eight years, but they never actually win. The Contrived Sparkers, I oughtta call 'em. The latest example is a Daily News article saying how Teixeira made some hard slide, and because of this, he sparked the team, and is suddenly "the type of player the team needs to win a championship." I refused to read the article. I got this stuff from the teasers and that was all I needed. But come on, they're on a hot streak anyway, and last night's win was 12-3. I think people just write these stories because they can't think of anything else. They have a "spark" template and just fill in the names.

The only way you can really say a guy gave a team a spark is at the end of the season. You look at who won the World Series, and you go back and see what event it was that put them on the right path. (And even that's usually a buncha shit anyway.) Any guy on any team can make a hard slide, start a fight, get ejected, or have a pizza party to try to bring the team together (Remember when the Yanks actually did that and then missed the playoffs for the first time in 14 years? Or was it bowling? A roller rink birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese? I really don't remember exactly.) They could do it every single day. But if you don't actually win, it obviously didn't work.

So John Harper, try to refrain from using the word "championship" until the Yanks actually win one. Unless you're referring to them decidedly un-winning championships.

Dear Papelbon Panickers: They were cheap hits! Pap loaded the bases, but still got the three outs, and gave up no runs, and we win 5-1. Dice's first win of '09. TC would like you to know that Matsuzaka is who he is. So...is there anyone who is what they aren't? Or isn't what they are?

Yanks beat Texas, Toronto wins, too. So we're still one back, Jays two back.

Did you watch the first Conan last night? It started out with him not being able to get a cab in New York and therefore deciding to run all the way to L.A. He even ran across the field at Wrigley on his way. They chose "Surrender" by Cheap Trick as the music for the bit, which always beings back memories of Cory doing the gun-waving dance for Carl in Over the Edge. Gypsy of the road!

It was cool, until the audience "woo"d when they saw him arriving in California--that's when it hit me that our coast has lost Conan. Sniffle.

Pretty good ending to it, though, as he reaches the studio, and the door's locked. So he sadly walks away off screen...only to return in a bulldozer and blaze right through the wall.

Andy Richter is back! But he's the announcer, which means Joel Godard is gone. I looked up info on Joel and there isn't much. I read that he actually used to be an announcer for Carson, but imdb doesn't indicate that. (Also, wasn't Ed McMahon always Johnny's announcer/sidekick?) He's an enigma wrapped in a cliche about different entities figuratively "wrapped" in each other. Unlike Conan's original show, Andy stays over at the mic and really doesn't do much. Get him back on the couch!

I was wondering about guests on the first show--you don't want to have someone upstage the host. Sure enough, Will Ferrell was carried onto the set by Roman-like slaves. They did a few other pre-taped skits, and then Pearl Jam closed it out. It's so weird to see this band that you followed when they started, when you and they were basically kids, and here's the host of The Tonight Show, which pre-dates all of us, being completely honored that they'd play for him. Their new tune sounded like "Gut Feeling" by Devo. And I couldn't watch the screen because the delay between sound and picture was at least a full second. It seems like that happened any time there was sound other than what the main microphones at Conan's desk was picking up. Or there'd be an echo. The fact that the delay/echo only happened some of the time, and wasn't always the same when it did happen, led me to believe it wasn't my TV. Anybody else have this problem?

These late-night hosts always have some connection to me. Conan: Red Sox fan. Leno: Red Sox fan. Fallon: Honorary Red Sox fan. Letterman: Was my neighbor, meaning he lives a few towns from where I was born/raised, and he'd come into my town's coffee shop, and he once drove right past me in a fancy convertible right near the Danbury Fair Mall. Carson: Raised in Nebraska and went to U of N, where I also went to college.

So now the two late-night shows I care to watch are on at the same time (until Fallon improves). I'll see how that goes. Maybe it's time to get a DVR, and just watch Dave at 11:30 and Conan on tape delay. Nah, I'll just wing it. It's not that big a deal.

Vendors with numbers update: I noticed the Rogers Centre vendors also have numbers. They've got horrible orange-ish shirts with "BEER" (or whatever that person's selling) and then the number below. They are Aramark, despite not having their traditional yellow shirts, so it's looking more and more like all Aramark teams now have numbers on their vendors. (The letter I wrote to the company inquiring about this has definitely not been answered.

Sox off, Yanks up 5-2 in eighth. If Cleveland can come back and win, we'll be tied for first. I will update this here. Update: Yanks win, we're a game back.

New episode of Photo Sleuth up at Baseball Digest. It has to do with a pic you've probably seen recently if you're a redsox.com checker.

Once again, an abortion doctor has been murdered. I'm still wondering how a person can say they're "pro-life" and then go and kill a person.

This weekend I was in New York City for BEA. No, it's not a convention where scores of Bea Arthur fans from around the world celebrate such fine works as The Golden Girls and Maude. It's Book Expo America. Knowing that my mom and I would get to attend (since we wrote a Red Sox mystery, new people), I suggested Kim try to get her soaps into a street fair the same weekend. So as it turned out, all of us and our friend Kara took a nice little vacation, with each of us also seeing friends that live in the city.

Saturday we woke up at 6 AM in New Haven, where we stayed at my parents' house. We had to load two cars' worth of soap-related goods and tables, chairs, and a tent, into my dad's van--aka The Pac-Men's 2001 tour bus--, get to Washington Square Park, load out, and set up by 9-ish. Then I had to haul ass up the Javits Center to meet up with my mom for our signing at 10:30. I made it by the skin o' my teeth, and we were sad to see no one on our line. But wait! There were people waiting to get their signed copy of Dirty Water, they were just forced to wait really far away from us until exactly 10:30. At that moment, the flood gates opened. After quickly going through a box of books, the woman helping us asked if we had another, saying "your line is huge." Sweet! We did have another box, but we went through all of them, signing for dozens of people. By the way, these are people from bookstores/libraries/publishers from all over. This BEA is like Devlin McGregor--it's a monster.

So then I manned the Hall of Fame Press booth for a while, before going back downtown where Kim and Kara were selling soap on the street, to get them broken down and loaded back into the van. By the way, I got a sweet Tues/Fri street cleaning spot that morning, and I knew right then we were gold for the whole weekend.

I'm leaving out a lot here, but it was a crazy and hectic day, but well worth it. Better than staying home and listening to a Woody Woodpecker CD.* And the weather was perfect--high 70s. And I got to eat at my favorite Indian place with Chan.

Then on Sunday, after a chocolate breakfast, we had our second signing at BEA--this time at our distributors' booth. You know what that means: If we get another huge line, they'll see just how awesome our book is, and start selling it more. And our fans came through again! This time they actually had to cut the line short at a certain point, as we again went through all the books we had. This time we got to sign a lot of books with "Yankees Suck," which is always fun.

And after yet another long day, I'm back in Rhode Island. I missed a lot of baseball action, including the Indians losing to the Yanks after having swept the Rays in 4, and the Jays beating the Red Sox, after having lost 9 straight. And the same thing happening again the next day. But today we made up for it, us walloping the Canadians, and the Indians winning in their last at bat against the Yanks. Those "ghosts" that seem to get all the credit for Yankee wins sure do love their days off. Eight years' worth and counting.

Oh, on Saturday at the convention, all of a sudden from a nearby stage I hear, "ladies and gentlemen, Wesley Snipes." Holy crap! I immediately grabbed my camera and vacated the booth I was supposed to be watching, to get shots of Willie Mays Hayes in the flesh:


And now for some more pics:

Man with cat on head. Also note one of Kim's soap cupcake.

I can't remember the last time I saw the fountain in Washington Square Park actually functioning. Empire State Building at far right. It's funny, Kim was down there, and you can see the ESB from there, and we were up on 34th and 11th, and you can see it from there, too--see very top picture. Even though I was obviously intending to get it in my photos, the whole thing didn't really hit me until now.

And there's my shot of it under the arch.

Coming home, a rainbow over New Haven. Mary-Ann Smith photo.

After dropping my mom off, and with Kim and Kara getting back into Kim's car in CT, I went the rest of the way by myself, and had to do my usual stop in Old Saybrook. I got a nice sunset shot over the causeway. Look closely in the middle to see a car on the causeway.


*When my band was planning our tour back in '01, we got to a point where we didn't have a lot of shows booked, and Brian and I were sitting in our Danbury apartment, wondering if maybe we should put the tour off until the following year. Our friend Prorock was sitting there, too, amd while looking through my cds, he chimed in on the subject: "Yeah, you could always just stick around here and listen to this Woody Woodpecker cd instead." That's all I needed to hear--plans for the tour went on as scheduled, and we went all the way to Cali and back, and had a blast. Thanks, Prorock.